After You Left

by Carol Mason

The door opens.

  I am face to face with a man. He looks at me, not particularly friendly. I’m aware of a grubby-white, sleeveless T-shirt, fat belly and arms tanned as far as the elbows.

  ‘Hello.’ I manage to find my voice. ‘I’m Alice. I believe you might know my husband.’

  ‘I don’t know anybody, love,’ he says, quickly, and good-naturedly. ‘I’m just doing a job here.’ He nods back inside, and wipes oily fingers across a sweaty forehead.

  Of course. The white van.

  ‘They had a burst radiator. Somebody put new ones everywhere except the bedrooms.’ He shakes his head, as though he despairs of people. ‘False economy every time.’

  I stare into his pale-blue eyes, at the sty or little cyst on his lower lid. ‘Who? I mean, do you know who lives here? Their name?’

  It’s hard to say whether he’s a bit suspicious now, or if he just doesn’t want to be bothered. Either way, all he says is, ‘Look, I’ve no idea who they are. They found me in the phone book. Left me a spare key.’ He coughs, a sharp and violent outburst that ends in him wheezing up a small storm. ‘Always seem to get the emergency jobs when I’m off to the caravan with the wife.’

  I’m dying to say, Who left you a key, and where are they? And why would they leave a key with a total stranger? But none of it will form.

  He goes on looking at me. ‘I’m sorry for bothering you,’ I tell him. After a moment or two of registering my defeat, I turn and start walking down the path.

  Then I hear him say, ‘MacFarlane. You said you wanted a name. That’s who lives here. Justin MacFarlane and his wife.’

  TWENTY-FOUR

  When I answer the knock on the door, Sally is standing there holding up a bottle of wine in each hand. My jaw drops. She pushes out her hip, and I see two more bottles peeking out of the top of her messenger bag.

  ‘I didn’t want us to run out.’

  ‘You really didn’t need to come,’ I tell her as I watch her walk past me and set the wine down on the bench. I know she tends to be a home bird when she isn’t running around after her daughters. Sometimes, I find it embarrassing that we are always gathering to sort out my relationship problems.

  She turns and meets my eyes, her own brimming with kindliness and understanding. ‘Er . . . you ring me and say, Justin’s got another wife, and you don’t think I’m going to come over?’

  Insane as it is, I smile.

  We sit at the small pine dining table. I tell her the whole thing in detail. Right down to the patch of sweat on the plumber’s shirt. ‘I’m sure it’s not his wife,’ she says, once I’ve told her everything I can possibly think of. ‘I can’t believe that in a million years.’ The first bottle of wine went down so fast that I’ve opened the second. I told her we should let it breathe and she said, ‘I think it’s us who need to be able to breathe, not the wine.’

  She is sitting in her rolled-up jeans, barefoot, with one leg lying across the opposite knee. I can see the hard skin on her heels.

  ‘But how can you be so sure, when you and John think he’s unknowable?’ I can’t resist it.

  She gives me that look – slightly disappointed in me – and scoops her hair up between both hands, as though she’s putting it in a ponytail, before letting it fall free again: something she does when she’s thinking. ‘He isn’t a bigamist. On that I’d bet my life.’

  ‘Would you really, though?’ I realise I’m drinking without really tasting the wine, and I need to pace myself.

  ‘My life savings then.’

  We look at one another, doubt ticking away between us. I can’t stop playing back how surreal it was to hear him say Justin MacFarlane and his wife.

  ‘I don’t believe it, either,’ I tell her. ‘Or, rather, I simply cannot bring myself to see how it could be true, but bizarre stuff like this happens, doesn’t it? I mean, you never imagine it would happen to you, but maybe I am going to be one of those people . . .’

  She is watching me when I come back from staring into space. ‘Al, he was a plumber they got out of the phone book. Why Justin was calling him, I don’t know, but I definitely wouldn’t put two and two together and come up with a bigamist.’

  ‘No,’ I say, not sure I’m any more comforted or convinced. ‘Maybe you are right.’

  We talk for so long – going over the past, looking for clues – that it turns dark, and we don’t bother to switch on a light. ‘Would you have him back?’ she asks me when there is quite possibly no more we can say on this topic. ‘I mean, obviously if there is some acceptable explanation for this.’

  I think about it. ‘Well, here’s another question. In my shoes, would you?’

  ‘No,’ she says. She taps a fingernail on her wine glass a few times, and I listen to it ping-ping. ‘It’s got nothing to do with forgiving, even if you could forgive him. I think, for me, he’d be too much of an emotional wild card now. I don’t want someone whose reaction is to just disappear without accountability. I would never be able to come home without wondering if he was going to be there, and I couldn’t live my life like that.’

  ‘Like you can with John,’ I say, after contemplating this for a while. ‘John is always going to be there, isn’t he?’ I feel bad again for having had uncharitable thoughts about him; at least he’s reliable.

  ‘Well, obviously, yes.’

  I wait for her to say more, as I sense there is more – she seems suddenly downcast – but she just looks away.

  A long time later, after we’ve relocated to the rug with our backs against the sofa, I say, ‘What am I going to do, Sal? Be honest with me.’

  ‘I think there’s only one thing you can do,’ she says. ‘But only you know if you can.’

  The beach is deserted except for the occasional dog walker and diehard hiker. I am panting from my attempt at a run – sweat, rain and hair product trickle down my cheeks, into my mouth. A pain shoots up my hamstrings because I didn’t warm up properly. My head pounds bluntly from lack of sleep and the fact that Sally and I got through three bottles of wine last night and woke up this morning like two cats, sleeping head to head in the middle of my sitting room floor.

  I feel like I’m swimming from relentlessly going over the same story, and from booze; Sally told me I was mad to do anything other than call in sick to work, and sleep it off. Instead of continuing along the beach, I turn toward the parking area, deciding to call it quits. The rain is coming down hard. I try to walk fast, listening to the rhythm of it threshing my Gore-Tex jacket. The battleship-grey tide steadily beats the shoreline, and one or two seagulls sit cowering on the sand.

  I am drenched and shivering when I push the car into gear, even though it’s far from cold. I am disorientated, blank in my head. But I realise I’m not going home, like I thought. Instead, I load the satnav and find the address from yesterday.

  Turn left, then follow the road for two miles . . .

  I try to listen to music, waiting for the next instructions. Anything to bring my heart rate down, and stop the belting of blood between my ears. There is a traffic jam once I get back on to the main road – an accident, by the looks of things. I don’t know how to divert and take an alternative route. I remember the banana in my handbag, dig for it, rip the peel back and push it into my mouth as I tremble. I stuff it down in a few seconds flat, gulp the bottled water and make a sharp turn right.

  At the next junction, turn left.

  Turning down the street, I see there are fewer cars than yesterday. Of course. A work day.

  Louisa’s voice. Justin is working from home . . .

  I trot down the path quickly this time. Bang on the door. Someone is bound to be in there. I bang, and bang, and bang, and bang until my knuckles sting.

  The neighbour’s door opens. The sleepy head of a tall young man looks out. He squints into the daylight, clearly not properly seeing me. ‘Can I help you?’ An accent. The strong h.

  ‘Who lives here?’ I ask him, without any mind to my attitude or manners. ‘Do you know them? Wh
at are their names?’

  He musses his curly brown hair, and pulls a bit of a pained, bewildered face. ‘Name?’ he repeats, as though he’s never heard that word before.

  ‘Of the man and woman who live here? Your neighbours.’

  ‘Man?’ He shrugs, shakes his head. ‘No man.’

  He bends down, and I watch what he’s doing, noticing the long, thin, darkly hairy legs, and the emerald-green bed shorts. He removes something – a sticky note – that has attached itself to his foot.

  ‘What do you mean, there’s no man?’ I ask, when he stands up. ‘Isn’t there a man who lives here? A couple?’

  ‘Maybe.’ He shrugs again, looking slightly amused, as though he thinks we are playing some sort of strange game. ‘I’m sorry. I don’t know. Sorry . . .’ Then he goes in and closes his door.

  I knock a couple more times, but there is nothing. No sign of life. When I am back in my car, I reach into my pocket for my phone. Sally was right. I packed his bags for a reason. There is no point in them just sitting in the middle of the floor.

  I have packed your stuff up. Please come get it this week. Or it goes to charity.

  To my surprise, less than two minutes later, he replies.

  Friday, 7 p.m.

  TWENTY-FIVE

  Evelyn

  London. 1983

  Her mother had left her some money. Plus, she had her income from journalism. She didn’t need to take anything from Mark. Evelyn wrote down on paper her net worth divided by the number of years she might live to get a rough idea of what they’d have to exist on, excluding anything Eddy might earn. She calculated that if they lived frugally, there would be enough to see them through the rest of their lives.

  Eddy didn’t earn much, but they didn’t need much. And besides, what was expensive was her lifestyle, not necessarily life itself. She had never been attracted to Mark purely for the money. His parents’ stately home certainly hadn’t made him more appealing, only less self-made. She hadn’t gone to London to meet a prince, become a princess and live in a castle, much as Eddy might joke.

  The flat would be the hardest material thing to leave. Admittedly, she was fond of it. While the bricks and mortar of it cost a disproportionate fortune, they were really paying for its proximity to Kensington Palace Gardens; to shops and cafés, flower stands, theatres and the parks of London’s West End. She had decorated it with great care, surrounding herself with the paintings, ornaments, cabinets and rugs that would give her timeless pleasure.

  The dogs. The horses. She would miss them, but she would get a dog back home. Maybe once she became closer to April, the little girl could help her choose a pet. She had thought a lot about April and the kind of stepmother she would be. She would never disrespect Laura, or try to be another parent. At most, she hoped that she could be a positive role model, and one day they might be friends.

  In one of his letters, Eddy had left her his phone number. He had made a note of the best time she could ring him, when his wife would not be there. She watched the clock, then took a large chance and dialled. He answered on the second ring.

  His happiness sounded so heartfelt, like something specially prized that no one but she could have given him.

  ‘I’ve been thinking, you have to do it first,’ she told him. ‘You have the most to lose, by far. So before I turn Mark’s world upside down, I need to know that you are as able as you seem to think you are of looking your wife and daughter in the eyes and telling them that you’re leaving them for me.’

  ‘You still doubt me, don’t you?’ She could hear his frustration.

  ‘I don’t doubt that you want to do it, Eddy. I just don’t know if you’re as steely as you’d like to think you are.’

  ‘You know what? I think you should do it first. After all, it’s really you whose life is going to change the most. Of the two of us, you’re the one I’m most worried will have second thoughts.’

  ‘I won’t have second thoughts, Eddy. I promise. I’m not going to say I’ll do it if I know I can’t.’ She recognised the magnitude of the commitment, but it didn’t faze her, because that’s how certain she was. Eddy was right. It was the eighties now. Couples split up. Families survived. There was no need for a child to get hurt. Neither of them would watch it happen. ‘I suppose we both have to take a leap of faith and trust each other,’ she said.

  After some back-and-forth discussion, they agreed that she would leave Mark and fly back North before Christmas, then Eddy would break the news to Laura in the early new year. If Evelyn waited until January, she was worried her nerve might fail.

  She dreaded to think how the meaning of Mark’s life would soft-focus when she left him. They knew a few divorced men who had lived it up like twenty-year-olds, enjoying the sexual advantage that their money brought them with younger women who would never have been interested in them years ago. It might have been a novelty at first. But eventually they craved the stability of a wife to come home to again – someone to see to it that their socks got washed, and that they remembered to visit their mothers. She couldn’t really see Mark applying Grecian 2000 and partying at Annabel’s, even though she didn’t doubt he could attract a much younger piece of eye candy. His ability to be part-lover, part-father and part-infant would be a comforting fit for a certain childlike siren character. Still, though, it was strange to be picturing his future knowing she wouldn’t be in it.

  When they had come to the end of their conversation, Eddy surprised her by saying, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘For what?’

  ‘For doing this. For me. I’ll never forget you left your good life for me, and I promise you, Evelyn, that even though I can’t give you much materially, I will give you all the love anyone can give someone. Every day of my life, my happiness will only exist if I know I’m making you happy. If I look at you and see the genuineness of it in your face.’

  She thought that was the loveliest thing anyone had ever said to her.

  She and Mark were one of a handful of couples dining on Saturday night in the small ivy-walled Italian restaurant, just off the High Street. Oddly, Mark looked up from his osso buco and asked her, ‘Do you think you’re ever going to put your mother’s house up for sale?’

  She knew he was just making conversation, but it was timely, anyway. They weren’t waiting for the money. In Mark’s eyes, her family home was worthless. That wasn’t unkind on his part, just the way he valued things.

  She met his eyes, trying to keep the regret out of her own. ‘Actually, I’m thinking of keeping it.’

  He frowned. ‘Keeping it? Why?’

  ‘To rent it out and have some income.’

  ‘Whatever for? Why would you want to have tenants in a property that you can’t oversee because you’re four hundred miles away?’

  She couldn’t bear his eyes. She looked down at her virtually untouched fettuccine Alfredo. ‘Maybe because it’s my family home. It’s all I have left of my heritage. I don’t want to let it go.’

  He was disapprovingly silent.

  ‘Maybe it’s a silly idea,’ she said after a while. Tell him, a part of her was trying to egg herself on. But she couldn’t tell him in the middle of a restaurant. It was funny, but, until now, the idea of telling him had still borne an unreal, rather distant quality.

  ‘I think it is a silly idea. I think you need to sell it and put that place behind you, once and for all.’

  That place.

  ‘You really don’t have to speak of my home like that.’ She was surer of her decision to leave than ever before now, even though she knew it was just anger.

  He studied her as she sat there ramrod still, refusing to meet his eyes. Then he sighed. ‘Well, look, for God’s sake, if you need to go back again – for closure – if that’s what it takes to finally let go, then do it. I’m not going to stand in your way; surely you know that.’

  He was unwittingly giving her the ‘out’ she needed, and yet it felt so wrong to take advantage of his naivety.

 
; Can I tell him I’m going back for a visit and then leave him a letter? Or should I tell him when I get there that I’m not coming back? Just like Eddy said . . . Then another flaw in this plan dawned on her. Abandon him three weeks before Christmas! Why had I even thought of that? What kind of a person would be so cruel?

  Suddenly, the logistics of leaving him bore down on her, her conscience crushing her until she could barely breathe.

  Mark sighed and went back to his food. It didn’t help that he was giving her latitude. Although, if she was being unkind, Evelyn would have argued that in giving her options, Mark would never have expected she’d choose the one that he would have least approved of. Then he added, ‘If you do go, though, I’ll miss you terribly. You know that, don’t you?’

  His words battered her. She could feel her thumb and index finger gripping her fork too tightly, tears trying to well up. He was rarely effusive with his affection. It was odd that he had chosen to be so now.

  A few days later, after wrestling with all this, she walked into his study. He glanced up from his desk, looking happy to see her. ‘Mark, I’ve decided I do need to go back up North. Like you said. For closure. Just this one last time. And before Christmas.’ Her heart beat erratically. She was so unused to lying that she was convinced the truth must be telexing itself across her forehead for him to read.

  Perhaps he need never know about Eddy. This thought suddenly landed on her. She could just say that she missed Lindisfarne too much, so she was going back there for good.

  Her plan still kept changing, practically by the minute.

  ‘Do it then. If you must. Go.’

  She could tell he was being gracious. ‘I don’t know why it can’t wait until the new year . . . But if it can’t, it can’t. I just hope this time when you come home, Evelyn, you’ll have settled matters, this thing, whatever it is, and I hope you’ll be more at peace with yourself.’ He had finished that sentence carefully. She wondered why.

  ‘Why am I not at peace with myself?’ she asked, quietly and without provocation. She was genuinely curious to know what he thought, given that he knew her better than anyone.